Posts Tagged ‘South America’

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Adios, ลาก่อน, Selamat tinggal, Tạm biệt, Lear heouy, Sib ntsib dua – Goodbye


2010
06.27

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So in 40mins we catch a taxi to the airport to bring us home.. Hasn’t been an especially busy few days tbh. The dune buggeying and sandboarding in Huachachina was immense! When the buggies drop down the sand dunes, you seriously thought you were going to flip! Sand boarding was really fun – the best ones were the ones that had about 3 drops in one run, several grazes and bruises after – but no pain no pleasure right?

Yesterday we were up early to sit on our last bus! Took about 5 hours to get us to Lima.. In the evening we went around the markets the intention to buy lots of things, but ended up buying very little as it was all rubbish tbh and more expensive than other places we have been. Had an early bed as Polly still isn’t feeling 100%, think her body is a bit tired.. This morning we had to sit through the England game which was exciting in the first half, then embarrassing in the second.. I’m sure you all watched it as well.. Luckily not too many Germans in the hostel! Then quite a while spent packing and showering before checking out for a massive Pizza for lunch. Caught bits of the Argentina game and currently have a load of Argentinians out in the square celebrating like they’ve won the cup!! Did a bit more wandering round Lima went down to the coast and saw the sea. Lima is constantly covered in cloud during winter (now) so no sun unfortunately and now have come back to do the finally blog abroad. Apparently we have heard that Iberia who we are flying back with are terrible so not exactly looking forward to the flight, but its only 11ish hours so nothing!!

SO Adios from Peru we’re coming home!!! Xxx

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35 soles to enter! No Gracias


2010
06.24

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When we arrived back at Cusco we changed hostel from Pariwana to Loki due to the fact that a lot of our trek group were staying there… They neglected to mention the 100 or so steps it took to get up to it! & we hoped we had seen the last of the steps! The showers were very nice and powerful & hot though so spent a while just soaking up the water :) Went and got completly overstuffed on the buffet curry – I´m  a sucker when its all you can eat! Only went up to the buffet around 7 times… Managed to get in a fair few happy hour drinks at Lokis bar which was completly packed because noone could be bothered to walk the mini marathon to the bars in town! Leisurly up the next morning for a suprisingly good breakfast.. I can´t quite remember what we did for the rest of the morning (probably watching the football/being very cultural), the next thing I remember was sitting in The Real McCoy eating my bangers and mash and Pol with her roast beef and yorkshire pud sandwich (not up to mum standard – Pol ) but still good!

In the evening we had a bus to Arequipa, so after some emotional goodbyes & facebook swapping we set off in a taxi to the station. Our bus overnight was ok, (I think it actually wasn´t that good, but compared to last nights, I´m remebering it fondly; but I´ll get to that in a min..) We arrived at Arequipa at 4 45am (!) and had a stressful time booking onto the 6am bus to Colca Canyon. The ticket desk didn´t open till 10 to 6 and there wsa a big rush of locals wanting tickets and very few left. Polly was getting completly ignored by the male ticket man who seemed to scan over women to the next guy wanting tickets, so I pushed my way to the front and got us a couple of the last tickets. The 6 hour bus wasn´t too bad and we managed to avoid paying a 35 soles (8 pound) entry fee. An offical looking women got on the bus and was selling the tickets which she said were compulsery.. Some tourists bought them straight away, but us and a few others refused as we´d never heard of the fee and thought it could just be a scam and when the women said there was a checkpoint we said we buy the tickets there then. With a humph she got off the bus never to be seen again, and the bus was never stopped for a checkpoint! REsult :) We did read in the bran new lonely planet this afternoon that the fee is genuine and they have just introduced it – obviously having some teething problems :) Anyway we arrived in Colca Canyon to some awesome chicken sandwiches and dropped our bags at the hostel that we were going to stay at the next night. After lunch we set off on the walk down the canyon to the Oasis. Took us around 2 hours to get down which wasn´t too bad, but you could see the pools all the way down hich was tantalsiing!! The place we were staying in was only 10 soles a night and had a very nice pool with a big rock to jump off (I´m easily pleased :) ) Another footie match followed in which the locals were easily defeated! The meals weren´t bad at the Oasis.. but they were quite simple (Polly wasn´t a fan, but I thought they were ok) The next morning we had the Oasis to ourselves as tour groups left early and the new group didn´t arrive till late so we had the pool and sun loungers to ourselves! Finally managed to drag ourselves away at half 2 for the 3 hour hike back up the canyon! Polly managed to keep a good pace going up the canyon and comprised with our music blaring out loud (we are totally wanna be chavs) the journey up wasn´t too bad. We got in to the hostel about 30mins before it got dark and as we had paid an extra pound each we had an en-suite with hot water ! so some nice showers before our epic meal! Probably went a little crazy with our ordering… Started with Alpaca Kebabs and chips, followed by a large pizza, followed by another bowl of chips finished off with a big plate of Nachos! Saved loads of money though as we just asked for glasses and made cocktails of Vodka, Inca Cola and Lime Juice!! The next morning we were up to suffer through the England match glad we got through.. not fancying our chances against Germany though..  Watched Italy get beaten by Slovakia(or was it Slovenia I can´t remember) this moring which was a great match if anyone watched it :)

We had another epic bus day yesterday to get us to Huchachina. Had to ride the 6 hours back to Arequipa then an overnight one to here. The overnight bus was horrible, was very cramped and I slept terribly. Although turns out it was mega cheap. We paid 30 soles to get here and someone travelling the opposite was was offered a ticket there for 140 soles! So feeling a bit better about it now. Polly had spent today in bed as she has been feeling like she would like to chunder everywhere.. although she perked up a bit this evening. Huachina is a vey small oasis town in the middle of huge sand dunes, which I climbed up today.. Hoping to go dune buggeying and sandboarding tomorrow as long as Polly is better. Put a load of photos onto DVD today as had a mini memory card scare and don´t want to risk losing them all (think some virus is in the camera and I don´t have the cable to plug it in and get rid of it grr) Only got to last a few days though so I think we´ll be ok :)

I heard back from my uni and have got my first choice accomadation which is very nice.. Have to come back at christmas and easter but it saves me 900 pounds which I thought would be worth it as I wouldn´t spend much time there anyway! Looked at Pollys tonight and she thinks she knows where she is going to apply to.. Bristol do it differently so it doesn´t matter when she applies. Also have confirmed that I am going back to cycle heaven this summer which is great although I emailed to check I was starting on the 1st of July and they though that I wasn´t back till later, but its great that I can start then; so I guess its straight back to work!!

Anyway kinde hard to believe that in 3 days time we will have taken off just under an hour ago to fly home! Have got 3 very busy days ahead though so it´s not over yet!! Xx Polly probably would say hi, but she is in bed!

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Stuck!


2010
06.19

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The Beer and Nachos when we arrived were very good – despite the almost comical size of the nacho portion, but oh well, they were free after all. Agua Calientes is a bit of a tourist rip off town, with fake offers like 5 drinks for the price of one… The drinks come in basically shot glasses they are so small! We learnt this after the first lot and managed to avoid too many scammy offers. Our second guide (the rubbish one) walked past us about 3 times in the restraunt before shouting in that everyone was annoyed at us as they wanted to go to the hostel! We found this a bit a odd as we had been told to meet in the square at 5 30 and it was only 5… Turns out no one was annoyed, just henry making a mess of things and not wanting any blame. Our hostel was perfectly ok a nice double room, but tempremental showers which prevented nice long showers, we only just had one before we came out so had been feeling very unclean..

We went for a meal in the evening with the tour people and found out about our 4am leave the next morning and that we wouldn´t be able to get home till saturday now as the strikes had been extended for the friday as well! Had an earlish bed as it had been a long day and also the fact our alarm was set for 3 30am!! Gutted for us! Especially when we found out what the walk was the next morning. Assumed a nice gentle strole up to Macchu Pichu, instead got a 2 hour hike in the dark up about 1000 steps! Was not much fun and aches hadn´t healed from the previous day. I was doing it in flip-flops which was much comfyier than shoes, but I did pay the price by losing the skin off my big toe :s We were about the 10th people to the top and had to wait  30 mins for the gates to open – 30 mins that would have been spent better in bed imo… When we did get in, it was pretty awesome seeing it there on the hill and is a lot better than photos/postcard pictures. More the setting of the buildings than the things themselves. Got some obligitory photos that basically everyone takes then had to go on our tour guides very dull tour in which we found out very little inca history and more that the rocks are grey and granite… He then left us to enjoy the rest of our day :) We had tickets to go up Huanapichu (which overlooks macchu pichu) but not for a couple of hours so we sunbathed and most of us fell asleep! The advantage of the strikes was that Machu Pichu was completly empty – there are usually around 3000 visitors a day, when we were there apparently there were only 300… So you hardly saw anyone! The climb up Huanapichu was even more steps, but the view from the top was completly worth it. My photos dont do it  justice at all, but you could see right out to Salkanty, which looked a very long way a way considering we had walked from it!

We left Macchu Pichu around half 1ish having had our inca fill and came back down to the town for a rest and some beers :) We had quite a big group of nine of us so went up the main street untill a restraunt gave us a good enough discount and ended up eating there! The day was kinde lie in, (Pol did better than me, I naturally woke up at 6 30 :( ) Went for coffee and watched some football. The rest of the morning was building up to the football. I don´t think Englands performance needs to be mentioned in detail… We ended up having to argue with the restraunt after as they put up the beer price (we got it back down after about 5 mins) then feeling very deflated we decided to go to the hot springs. They were nice a bit overcrowded and we decided against getting a drink as they were over 3 pounds!!! Scandalous!

Today we were back to the early start as we had a 2 hour walk followed by 8 hours on a bus to get back to Cusco.. due to all the trains being sold out/the company being to cheap to pay the increased train fares. We were told the first, but found the second reason to be the true reason! Has been quite a long dull day, but we are now back in Cusco! Yaay :) Was an awesome trek, just a bit annoying getting stuck, but all part of the experience. My card got delcined from the cash machine as I´ve used up the 3000 pounds that I put on it so am going to have to load some back up funds onto it to get us through the last week!! Thought the money would make it as well! Have put up 44 photos just now as we have fast internet :) So you have up to Copacabana in Bolivia to look at :) Going to go back to the hostel now for some drinks with our Salcanta trek then we move on tomorrow!

One week to go!

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Make up your own title… we cba tbh


2010
06.12

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Toby has just offered a prize to the person who thinks of the best and most witty title….

So we finally managed to leave Copacabana, tres sad, especially considering the deilghts of the twelve hour bus that lay ahead. We knew it was going to be long and to be fair the bus was pretty comfy but i got 10 pages into my book before deciding i actually couldnt continue it was that rubbish so had no book, music we´ve now heard far too many times and a toby tucking into some 800 page fantasy beast book. fun times. Thank god for the packed lunch we had picked up the night before otherwise we would have been starving! as there was literally no food options on the way, plus we had no peru money to buy any with.

We arrived …finally! grrr it was long.. and then we had to get a taxi to the hostel becauase the bus station was in the middle of nowhere… we have barely taken any taxis in south america and the stories and the guide book (r.i.p) make it sound like everyone is a potential scammer/ criminal. So we checked the id of our official taxi and headed off. And by the end i felt meanish, i was all, how much,…. how many minutes, and he was like good evening, check out the plaza and stuff. Oh well, we survived and got to the hostel, which is probably the first one we´ve booked ahead that hasnt left me feeling slightly disappointed in some way… except for the really loud live music right next to our dorm, good times!

Woke up the next day watched a bit of the world cup with our amazing breakfast… dry bread rolls, jam and butter (people just do not understand the concept of breakfast!) and then randomly ran into our friends andy and charlotte who we met in Santiago turns out they had just got back from the inca trail and were staying in the same place. whoop. We immediatey went out for lunch after the delicious breakfast ( it was about 11ish by this point… lil early oops. And we went to this realli nice place they had been to before… like places we would want to go to at home but cant afford… to be fair, couldnt realli afford it here, but it was treat day! (everyday….) was YUM and there was even a queue outside.

Checked out cusco. Very nice, sunny, plazas everywhere, tourist LAND but pretty and colonial. And there was a festival thing on so we got to see some cool costumes and dancing and about 2 fireworks in the evening :) We also booked our trek to macchu picchu, which leaves tomorrow at 4:30am! ewww. for any geeks that would like to research it, its called to salcantay trek, 5 days 4 nights, 3 of which are camping… no shower!Not entirely sure where it goes, apparently there is lots of uphill mountain walking and then it joins up with the inca trail for the last day to go up to macchu picchu for the sunrise.  Toby is proper psyched! and i am proper psyched to be able to say ive done it when we get back :p little concerned about the fact we have a full day 9-5 of free time at macchu picchu after a three hour guided tour … may be a little too much culture for us to manage perhaps will take the books :)

Last night we went out with charlotte and andy and there friends from the inca trail, started at an irish pub with happy hour (prices werent THAT happy) and stayed for actually quite a few hours, then moved onto a club with was wayyyy crowded but free drinks and music we had actually heard of. Toby would like to point out that flip flops are a poor choice of club attire, especially when their are people with heels around. Lasted pretty late realli like half 2 whoop! but woah, was not a fan of the headache this morning. I had to leave the hostel in pyjamas and no shoes and last nights make up to buy a big bottle of water from the nearest vendor who totally ripped me off but i was too tired to care.

Then we chilled in the sunny courtyard of the hostel for a tan sesh, before heading out for the football, early… needed to get a good seat obvs.  Went to the irish bar from the night before, got the last free table and ordered a mammoth but expensive lunch. Shepherds pie and burgers :) It suddenly struck us just before the match started that as we werent actually in england, there may be some american fans. Far too many ( more than 20! for our liking). We had some good banter, some quite vicious but they deserved it. Every single time america got the ball the chants of usa would began. GROAN! one word…. starts with knob…. ends in heads :) but we survived, and thankfully we didnt lose or we would have had to sneak out under the tables at the end to avoid the harassment. but yeah, lets hope we play better in the next match… which is strategically placed the day after we get back from our trek.

And thats pretty much it… no internet for six days!!! arghhhhhh

Toby says hola :) xxxx

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Umpa Lumpa, Dooba Dee Doop


2010
06.09

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Well im pretty sure this is one of the first times we´ve done a second blog post from the same place! Yup… still in Copacabana, tonight will be our fifth night in the hotel but to be fair we are leaving tomorrow to get on with actually travelling and stuff (well to be fair, mostly to ensure we can watch the england match on saturday) so whoop a nine hour bus awaits… good job we picked up a packed lunch from the restaurant tonight :)

So what have we been up to?? well sunday didnt even seem to exist because between us i managed to get out of bed for a couple of hours shopping and tea in the evening but apart from that i mostly felt like i could just chunder everywhere… and as for toby, when he wasnt in bed, he was chundering everywhere! well not everywhere. thankfully we have our own bathroom.  Sadly it seems suspiciously like our fav restaurant from the night before may have given us a lil bit of food poisoning ,… whooop. But we are consideraby better now. We did watch 17 again though in the evening on our own tv… yayyy and obvs bought choccy to go with it.

The next day we didnt wanna do anything too strenous so mostly just chilled, and at some point managed to hire a rowing boat with the most ridiculous oars ever, planks of wood nailed to longer, thinner planks of wood, for two hours. We went out a bit but then spent at least an hour just floating with our music and books working hard on the tan. (toby would like me to point out that he also climbed a hill on this day… i looked at the photos so that as good as counts…) Got back and realised we didnt realli have too much money left and luckily for us the bank was shut for the occasion of it being a monday. SO we couldnt pay for the hostel but just about got away with it. Booked our boat out to the isla del sol, apparently its like this mystical place where the incas came from but to be fair, weñ´ve lost the guide book and we couldnt really read the spanish signs so it could have been anything. After a very uncomfy two hour boat ride, we arrived on the north side of the island and bought two BEASTY sandwiched for 60p each and set off on our epic 4 hours long trek to reach the other side of the island  and the boat to pick us up.

After about an hour we came to some inca ruins, apparently an old temple or summit. We are now slightly worried for macchu picchu just for the fact that it might turn into one big mock fest. For instance over the course of our 10 minute look we came to the conclusion that the incas were in fact actually umpa lumpas (even toby couldnt fit through their archways) and that they had built loads of tunnels for carrying willy wonkas chocolate to the chocolate worshipping table just around the corner. Tres mature.

On a more cultural note,  today we discovered that the incas were actually pretty recent, like the 1400´s so technically we had the minster and they had something less complex than stonehenge. Im sorry if that sounds like a burn. The walk was long and uphill and realli hot and sunny (toby describes it as very nice) and to be fair there were some funky snow covered mountains you could see and the lake was realli clear blue (although way too freezing to go swimming in) I just realized this morning that i look like an idiot because i burned my legs just on the bottom bits on the back from my cropped trousers from this walk and now look rather silly.

Anyways, random people kept asking us for money, not in a begging way but in a , yes 50p to walk through my village kinda way. Well you can imagine how much we liked that…. i didnt  even wanna walk through their village. If only we knew more spanish we could have argued a lot better. but all i could say to the third woman when she asked, was why??? for the ruins she replied. Well im not being funny, but the only ruins i saw were the shambles of the village. ..not to be harsh or anything.

After an atrocious cheese sandwich and hairy portion of chips from a restaurant that wasnt even in the sun, we were off to the islas flotantes.

The floating islands for a few planks of wood together, making room for a table and chairs… yes, some may call it a dock, but not the bolivians.  the driver of the boat was like, who would like to get off and have a closerlook….

No-one was the answer. and it was a full boat.  but that could have been because when i tapped toby on the shoulders, he looked around a nd said really loudly… awww we´re at the  &$%&  floating  islands ….

anyways got back in time to go to the bank and were no longer poor, although this was shortlived as we had to go back again the day after. Went for a nice meal for 3 pounds each (warm bread and butter, salad buffet, soup, beef in tomato sauce with rice and potato and more veg, and chocoalte cake, and a jug of lemonade… was immense!!)

we then treated ourselves to some alcohol (1 pound 50 for a massive bottle of vodka, but im so hardcore i managed about 3 glasses then fell asleep at the grand old time of 8:30pm. Will try harder next time.

Today we didnt do much … for a change… more lie ins, more sun, more shopping, more smoothies which i spilt all over before we had even started so they didnt end up being such a good deal. ANnnnnndd thats about it.

Cusco manaña whoop!¡ xxxx

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Her name was Lola… she was a showgirl


2010
06.06

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Yeahhhhh man, we are in Copacabana… not the one from the song, but shhhh. This is the cheaper,  bolivian one with a big lake as opposed to a resort of beach but it”ll do. We have a private room again yayyy with ensuite and tv and a view from the window! cant even remember the last time that happened. It costs 4 squids each per night but that does include breakfast (a stale bread roll with unidentified fruit juice….)

We have decided to totally lard arse here for a few days maybe rent a boat for a bit today and maybe go to an island tomorrow… but apart from that… eat, tan, sleep, and more of the same, maybe some more souvenir shopping…

Our second day in la paz was the first day in the whole of the travels that we have actually dedicated to shopping (souvenirs) which was awesome. We went to the witches market, which was very lacking in witch-y things, a few plant herby things and lots of llama foetuses yummmm but apart from that it was all for the tourists which we totally didnt mind.

Found a well good place for lunch… we got soup (toby has become my official runny soup finisher (and starter) as i am not so keen…, quarter chicken with rice and chips, and a drink.. for one pound thirty. Good deal! except this random man with a balaclava stood right in front of us on the other side of the window and seeemed to be staring at us for like a full minute, which was terrifying. He then banged on the window and went away, toby reckons he was trying to get the attention of the waiter but i was convinced he would be waiting for us round a corner… he wasn”t.

For the rest of the afternoon we checked out the other parts of la paz, which took like an hour maximum  and then some more shopping! bought the newest series of greys anatomy (yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy) and watched a double bill at the hostel, only to find that we are missing the last 6 episodes (nooooooooooooooooooo).

The next morning we were up super early (missing our pancake breakfast) to go biking on the death ride,,, whoop. got to the ofice for seven and after a non pancake breakfast headed off. It was ALL downhill except for the last five minutes which is my kind of mountain biking as you could basically not pedal at all just make sure you dont fall off the edge and brake a lot. You are concentrating quite hard and if your toby your going so fast you cant even see the scenery but i guess it was quite dangerous-y. finished around one and i wasnt too far behind, even though i had an almost falling in a river experience which left me with a very wet left shoe… and admittedly i did walk all the uphill bit, but only because it was quicker than my attempt at biking.  chilled out after finishing with a buffet lunch and a swimming pool, which i was VERy tempted to go in but didnt quite make it. I also got bitten by the most killer mosquito ever. whoop.

after the LONG drive back to La Paz all we had time to do was eat and sleep not too thrilling.

Then bus in the morning to the copacabana which we like a lot. its basically one road with lots of touristy stuff and not much else. went to the awesomeest restaurant last night with amazing nachos and enchiladas and chocolate cake! covered with fairy lights and a well good jack johnson / reggae versions of the beatles soundtrack and furry rugs on the chairs.  And board games… we played connect four and chinese checkers and battle ships because we are just soooooooo cool.

And this morning, we completely blobbed out and just about managed to make it to the internet place for about half 12…..

and thats it! 3 weeks left!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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You want us to pay again! We don´t think so…


2010
06.02

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Must write blog… Jeez Sarah stop distracting me :p Been on the internet for 45mins and am only just starting.. Still when internet is 25p an hour its ok to fb for a while. You´ll get what the title means later in the post… We are in La Paz atm having got straight on an overnight bus after our salt flats trip, so we were feeling lovely and clean as despite the tour guides promise that there were hot showers there obviously weren´t any!

The salt flat tour was good fun and had some comedy moments. The guy who sold everyone the tour wasn´t the most honest person we´ve met and booked one too many people on the trip. Watching everyone slowly work out there were 13 people rather than 12 was entertaining and when the guy returned (he went out to help get people as apparently a bus had broken down, this meant we set off an hour late) he had quite a few questions to answer!! We ended up getting 4 bottles of wine free as an apology. Tbf we didn´t mind the extra person as it didn´t affect the squisshynesh and was an extra person to talk to! The trip started off slow with the train graveyard (whoop whoop) but picked up as we went to the cactus island with 9metre high cacti and then obviously the salt flat where we took a few comedy photos! We went into this cave that you had to pay a pound to get into and you saw it all as soon as you entered. Wasn´t exactly big but some coolish formations. The first hostel that we stayed in was made of salt and cactus so was quite cool. Got extremly cold later in the evening though and the power cut around 10 so early beds. The sky outside was extremly cool and one of the highlights, as it was super dark and you could see thousands of stars and the band of the milky way! Tried to photo it but ended up with a black photo! Oh well you´ll have to believe me that it was awesome :)

The next, once they had defrosted our jeep, we set off to visit 5 different lakes in craters. Some were a bit dull but the red one was very cool and reflected the mountains around it! There was also this huge red empty crater at about 5000m metres that after about 30 seconds of running across it you were completly out of breath. When my uncle when travelling round SA 10 years ago he had photos of him doing headstands at various places. I took it a step further and got an awesome photo of me doing a handstand (woah) in the crater! Expertly taken by Polly of course :) You will see the photos one day, but Bolivia isn´t renowned for quick internet. We paid today to get all our photos since New Zealand put onto a DVD as we had another memory card scare and lost some photos so we wanted to make sure that they are safe!

Anyways, I digress. The third day didn´t start brilliantly as I was sick due to the undercooked chicken the night before. I noticed and stopped eating it, but obviously not soon enough. I did improve quickly though which was a relief as we were in the jeep a lot the third day to get back. The highlight of the third day was the hot springs in the moring, which really warmed and woke you up! Was lovely and hot (in the water, outside was around 5 degrees!) We then drove around an hour to see this supposedly amazing lake that was the worst we have seen all trip, just brown and half empty! We then had to turn around drive the hour back as we had made the detoir specially!

We then had a long drive back with a few little stops mainly for the break. On the leaving the national park the guards wanted to see our passes that we had paid 15 pounds (!) for on entry. We had left ours at the hostel as we didn´t see any need for them! The gurds demanded we paid again, but we stood our ground and said no (to guys stood there with pistols :s) and eventually they gave in and let us pass when we pointed out (well the girl who spoke english and spanish pointed it out for us!) that they could ring the other office who would know we bought them (you had to write down your passport and name etc when you bought the pass) so we got through! Yaaay! Was quite a long drive back, but along fun 4 x 4 tracks and when we got back we had a couple of hours for some super good pizza and chocolate cake (treat day?)before the long bus that got us here at 6am! Got to our hostel eventually and the guy was a bit confused with our booking. Check in was at 2pm so we had booked the previous night so we could check straight in. This had confused him so I think we aren´t paying for the extra night! Yaay :) Spent today trying to plan what we want to do here. Going to mountain bike down death road on friday we think and doing the witches market tomorrow but haven´t really got much set in stone atm! Trying to organise our 5 day trek that we want to do in Peru around the England games atm!! Anyway getting a bit peckish now so going to go eat!

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Woah! We´re going to Bolivia (ala Venga Boys)


2010
05.29

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Hola! Just a short blog today as Bolivias internet is not the fastest… So as you may have realised we are in Bolivia and it is awesome :) We are now eating out every meal and have had a private room for a few nights. Arrived at the Bolivian border at 5am and eventually got allowed into the country when we remember to get checked out of Argentina. So anyway a 1 pound 2 and half hour bus ride along dirt tracks we arrived in Tupiza down one bag that Polly managed to lose/got stolen (she says…) Luckily there was very little in the bag, the most valuable item being our guidebook, luckily we have kinde planned our last month so it isn´t a major blow. Yes it is our last month now, we past the 100 day mark the other day!

We checked into a hostel and a mini rest before going and exploring the town as well as withdrawing 3000 Bolivianos (300 pounds) in cash from a bank as cash machines don´t exist here! Despite the hostel womens best attempt to get us to book a Salt flat tour for double the price than in Uyuni we resisted and instead booked onto some more horse riding as, yes Sophie we have decided to ditch the bus and travel via our four legged companions, who were slightly crazy it turned out! Our day in Tupisa was awesome. It was very hot all day and cloudless. We chilled on our rooftop terrace for a couple of hours sunbathing/reading and listening to music as my phone has decided to work again! The horse riding in the afternoon was great fun. We went out to a big canyoney place that felt a little like mars as whichever way you looked was red rocks… The horses were a bit mad and liked to attack one another if they got to close, Polly´s horse was the worse and proper jumped to try and bite other horses! We got to gallop on the horses as well which was scary but immense and the horses jumped over this stream thingy. Overall a very good afternoon.

Today we had an all day bus to Uyuni which wasn´t the best as they don´t have roads here so it is a very bumpy ride with huge drops down cliffs either side of the road.. Pol shut her eyes for bits of the journey! Took all day to cover 200km so wasn´t exactly speedy travel. We have been very busy since we arrived as there isn´t actually a whole lot to do here apart from the salt flat tours, so after listening to the agents tell us how good their tour is we booked one to start tomorrow morning! We also booked our bus out of here a few hours after we get back! Some fun shopping times followed so we now have super cool hats, gloves, socks and even leg warmers!!

Our trip lasts 3 days and then were straight up to La Paz so will be a short while till the next post, but don´t worry we haven´t died (unless our jeep breaks down and we get stranded…) We´ll keep our fingers crossed :) xxx

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Cactuses and Chicken


2010
05.26

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We successfully managed to waste the day in Cordoba…i don´t really mean waste…in mean cinema :) robin hood this time, we are actually regulars. For those of you aware of my film taste, you can imagine that endless wars with bows and arrows involved is like my idea of an amazing film…not. But, it was pretty much the only option and not too too bad. (Polly was actually enjoying it, whenever I sneakily looked over she was grinning!)

Tried out an ice cream place afterwards, soooo cheap like 90p for a sundae with fruit two scoops whipped cream and sauce, we accidentally went back today for more…milkshakes this time… mmm! Bus was average… tea was far too late. We stopped at like 9 and almost everyone got off and came back with bought food which we took as a bad sign but we had been promised food, so persevered. By half 9 i had almost given up, eaten my one banana (only food we had) and resigned myself to a hungry sleep…. and just as i was nodding off, at about 10:10pm round comes another delectable selection of ham and cheese sandwichs plus mushy ham with corn and peas in a lasagne form kind of. Yum.

Arrived horribly early (still dark) to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Noone fancied telling us there was another bus hidden behind our bus to take us to the town so we wandered into the cafe thing and had a very stunted convo with the guy trying to sell us coffee.. where are we??? looks bemused, pulls out map and points to a place which is not really near to salta, where we are going…oh dear… Luckily he realised our stupidness and took us to the bus, just before it was about to drive off. Close call! and an hour later we were at our hostel.

Salta is really nice, especially after not living anywhere for a couple of days…and very hot and sunny!!!! yayyyyyyy i actually got another tan line today.. it had been very missed. Yesterday was argentinas 200th birthday/independence day celebration which apparently required shops being closed about 4 days in advance … for preparations.. obvs. So we managed to catch a bit of the parade (seemingly every person in salta was involved in some way) then had a lovely lunch in the main plaza square thing … sat outside. It was the first restaurant for at least a week and the first proper food for a few days… the chicken salad sandwich was yumyum.

In the afternoon we headed up in a cable car to the top of a tall hill thing (they seem to like their tall hills where you can view the whole city) chilled out there in the sun with icecream (hard life) then got some photos with the waterfally things they had created, before coming down checking out the markets and trying to sort our life out for the next few days… the plan for ages has been across to buenos aires and then up to salta and then….. yeah, we hadnt really got that far. But its sorted now. That afternoon we booked a day trip for today to a nearby-ish town and then tonight we have yet another night bus (groan… but yay for saving on accomodation)(but really it isn´t a proper nightbus at it leaves at quater to 1 in the morning!!) to the border of argentina and bolivia… so by lunch tomorrow we should be in cheap land ! cant wait! and we have like over two weeks to spend there so should be able to chill out a bit :)

The day trip today was really cool, a lot of driving but worth it for awesome pictures. Basically you take a really scenic route to this village called cachi stopping at various points for photos and then stop at the town for lunch then head back. Not sure quite why, but it was only me and toby on the tour, so personal guide and chauffeur whooop… little apprehensive at first but ended up good. Apparently there was supposed to be another two but we called at their hostel (yucky time of about 7am…and they were still asleep so we drove off.. gutted times!)

Will hopefully get the pics up either tonight or sometime soon but basically loads of funky mountains, some with snow on the top, loads really reddy or orangey because of the iron apparently…probs took too many photos.. the highlight for me (and toby has concurred) were the cactuses or cactai or whatever you wanna call them. Apparently it was the second largest cactus reserve in the world so we partied on down all alone with the cactuses while the guide sat in the car far away. Because there were only the two of us in a car as opposed to the minivan full we were ahead of all the other tours which meant it was totally deserted for us. Commence photoshoot… with toby modelling the bed head look he works so well (unless your sophie who thinks it needs to go!)

Made it to Cachi and decided to use our two hours well and go to the museum and the church like the guide recommended….just joshing! we sun bathed in the centre square with our premade lunch :) last night we bought an epic pre cooked roast chicken and ate it with rice and tomato sauce yesterday (it was one of the best teas in aaages :) – toby) but had enough left for massive baguettes.. and an apple as well (gotta stay healthy!)(plus crisps… don´t want to get too healthy do we) finally got of our bums for a walk up to the cemetery wayyy too much effort up a hill, when we were already at a high altitude (which i am blaming completely for my out of breath ness) had a nice look then wandered down to find the car.. i fell asleep pretty much straight away but got woken up for a lovely mountain stroll (great) which was nice but……. so was sleep. Then it was tobys turn for sleep not sure how, as our guide had decided he was colin mcrae (toby says its a good job we werent in a helicopter…..) and we made it back to salta in good time..just what we needed a couple of extra hours to hang around whilst waiting for the bus. Polly did suggest that in those couple of extra hours we go to an ice-cream parlour……

its now ten to 9 and we are just waiting until a suitable time to go for tea comes, probs like 45 minutes….. groan. hungry!

anyways, next blog will be from bolivia

xxxxx

what do you say to a liar from south america?

i don´t bolivia! :)

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Life on a bus (with lots of ham and cheese)


2010
05.24

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So… i finally woke up on that afternoon…and a very nice someone went out to the supermarket to buy our healthy tea (fish fingers and chips… with peas and sweetcorn might i add) and a sneaky chocolate bar to make me feel better…and then he cooked it all while i blobbed in front of my super sweet 16 on mtv. We did actually manage to make it out to the jazz bar in the end. It said on the flyer it started at 10pm so we decided to head out about half past…fashionably late… good job we didnt go at 11 like toby had suggested… We got there and the place was pretty busy ordered our ginormo beer to share and heard about a minute of music then they all stopped grabbed their coats and went outside. <i was sure it was just a cigerette break but still, it would have been a rip off to pay the 2 quid entrance feww for that! We didnt need to worry though, they came back and did almost an hour so we got our moneys worth…and the double bass player (who had a really cool electric one) im sure is a runaway from coldplay… he had the look downnnn.

Got back to the hostel where the second round of ring of fire was just commencing…how could we resist, except iut was the american version called kings cup and obviously not as good… boooo! but it was fun and at 2am ish it was our latest night in a while.

Which was great for my johnson cough which has been getting louder and more annoying until about today where i think it is starting to subside a little, as well, the epically runny nose is on its way out… whoop.

the next morning we got a bus to Montevideo, the capial of uruguay. I remember learning all the countries and the capitals in grade 10 spanish class, but never actually thought i´d go there… but to be fair i probably wont be going back. It was ok, nothing too special… cloudy and all food was expensive so we hit a new low and got plain pasta with tomato puree for tea, saved by a fruit salad we made ourselves. Was still feeling pretty rough and had passed it onto toby a little bit so early night, gutted for the people in the dorm that had to sleep through the cough… ha!

Day 2 montevideo… had already booked our bus for the night but woke up feeling suprisingly energetic and went on a ´free´ walking tour with the hostel… you had to tip.The guide, although she could speak good english decided not to 90 percent of the time, so all we gleamed about the city was mainly here is the library and law school, have a look at the market, mee tback here in 50 mins.

It was a weird market, kinda like a car boot sale in the middle of the city, but they had stands for most things, remotes, rabbits, underwear, bikes, gold things, birds, old games consoles, fake dvds…nothing caught our eye really though and we continued on with the tour… which was pointless except for the fact that where the tour ended happened to be at a really cool park with another market, peddle boats and a drumming group, which they neglected to show us… we quickly paid our 1 pound tip each and went to explore…/ collapse in front of the burger stand with our hamburguesas numero dos…cheese onions sweetcorn ketchup… mmm.. the drummers were still playing and the sun was out so sitting was nice for a while.. then a wander round the market (still too expensive) and then a sneaky turn on the peddle boats. Toby decided that we should see if we could get a chunk of wood all the way through the mechanism (why¿?) which hindered our progress for a while, but we got there and then made the long walk back to the hostel to get ready for a night bus, back to corboda in argentina.

We´re trying to get to a place called salta in the north o argentina but no buses went there so corboda was the furthest and stpped us from having to go bak to buenos aires and pay more for taxis to get around, so here we are again and today we went back to the same cinema we went to last monday to watch robin hood. Another bus tonight, finally getting to salta so we are proper bums…left our bags in a locker at the bus station as obvs we have no hostel to go to … sob.

Tea last night was thrilling, ham and cheese sandwich followed by ham and cheese croissant followed by ham and cheese lasagne but at least there was food and at least it was free… i bet we will have the same joy tonight. lets just hope that they dont consider 3 crackers breakfast again… grrrr.

And yeah think thats about all to report…

xxxxxxxxxxxx

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